1782 – 1782


One of the stranger aspects of Metal is its ‘thing’ for women being burnt at the stake. Doom Metal, in particular, positively thrives on it, as bands like Witchfinder General and, err, Burning Witch makes only too clear. So it shouldn’t really a surprise that there is not only a (Sardinian) Doom Metal band called 1782 (named after the last year a “witch” was burnt in Europe), but that its self-titled debut (Electric Valley Records) is a full-on concept album of hag-burning excess.

But I digress. Slightly worrying subject matter aside, 1782 is not a bad album. We may as well address the vocals, which are pretty standard Doom Metal wails, but for the fact that they sound like they were recorded in a tin shed down a fucking well. We should also note that the band’s sound mostly follows the standard Doom Metal template – warbling drones, downtuned notes, the harmonic lower scale via hairy blokes in the 1970s… And so on.

Were this all there was to the album, of course, it would be reasonable, but dull. Yet there is so much more. When the songs follow the usual Doom Metal template, it’s good. When it does something different and distinctive, it moves into a whole new league.

Take the simple and direct approach of track six, ‘Oh Mary’, which flows smoothly into an intriguing, mid-tempo tour de force of sections and breaks. Or the wonderful ‘damned chorus’ on ‘The Spell…’, that erupts out of nowhere as a welcome surprise. Then there is the sudden stop and equally sudden reprise in ‘She Was A Witch’, and the evocative organ solo of the title track.

To conclude, the thing with witches, or at least the idea of them, is duality – the notion that one can be touched by evil, and yet be beautiful, even alluring. This says more about the societies that burn witches than the witches themselves. But it is also a fitting metaphor for this album; waist-deep in Doom Metal’s conventions, yet hinting at, and often realising something bigger, deeper, more hypnotic…

8 / 10

ALEXANDER HAY